Attitudes

Attitudes are evaluations people make about objects, ideas,
events, or other people. Attitudes can be positive or negative. Explicit
attitudes are conscious beliefs that can guide decisions and behavior.
Implicit attitudes are unconscious beliefs that can still influence
decisions and behavior. Attitudes can include up to three components: cognitive,
emotional, and behavioral.

Example: Jane believes that smoking is unhealthy, feels disgusted
when people smoke around her, and avoids being in situations where
people smoke.

Dimensions of Attitudes

Researchers study three dimensions of attitude: strength, accessibility,
and ambivalence.

Attitude strength: Strong attitudes are those that are
firmly held and that highly influence behavior. Attitudes that are important
to a person tend to be strong. Attitudes that people have a vested interest
in also tend to be strong. Furthermore, people tend to have stronger
attitudes about things, events, ideas, or people they have considerable
knowledge and information about.

Attitude accessibility: The accessibility of an attitude
refers to the ease with which it comes to mind. In general, highly
accessible attitudes tend to be stronger.

Attitude ambivalence: Ambivalence of an attitude refers
to the ratio of positive and negative evaluations that make up that
attitude. The ambivalence of an attitude increases as the positive and
negative evaluations get more and more equal.

The Influence of Attitudes on Behavior

Behavior does not always reflect attitudes. However, attitudes do
determine behavior in some situations:

If there are few outside influences, attitude guides
behavior.

Example: Wyatt has an attitude that eating junk food is
unhealthy. When he is at home, he does not eat chips or candy.
However, when he is at parties, he indulges in these
foods.

Behavior is guided by attitudes specific to that behavior.

Example: Megan might have a general attitude of respect toward
seniors, but that would not prevent her from being disrespectful
to an elderly woman who cuts her off at a stop sign. However, if
Megan has an easygoing attitude about being cut off at stop
signs, she is not likely to swear at someone who cuts her
off.